This story was not however composed by me, but a very close
friend of mine. I believe he has a true blood born talent
for writing and if you agree please comment, because your
words may give him the confidence to further pursue his love
of writing.... Here it is hope you all enjoy it.


…………And the Shadow fell upon the land, and the world
was riven stone from stone. The oceans fled, and the
mountains were swallowed up, and the nations were scattered
to the corners of the earth. The moon was as blood and the
sun as ashes. The seas boiled, and the living envied the
dead. All was shattered and all but memory lost, and one
memory above all others, of her that brought the Shadow and
the Breaking of the World. And her they named the
Dragon……….. 



The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in
memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened. Bars
of sunlight cast through rents in the walls made motes of
dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scorch-marks
marred the walls, the floors, the ceilings. Blood black
smears crossed the blistered paints and gilt of once-bright
murals, soot overlaying crumbling friezes of men and animals
which seemed to have attempted to walk before the madness
grew quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and
children, struck down in attempted flight by the lightnings
that had flashed down every corridor, or seized by the fires
that had stalked them, or sunken onto stone of the palace,
the stones that had flowed and sought, almost alive, before
stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colorful
tapestries and paintings, masterworks all, hung undisturbed,
except where bulging walls had pushed them awry. Finely
carved furnishings, inlaid with ivory and gold, stood
untouched except where rippling floors had toppled them. The
mind-twisting had stuck at the core, ignoring peripheral
things.
	Destiny wandered the palace, deftly keeping her balance
when the earth heaved. “Jonathon! My love, where are
you?” The edge of her pale gray cloak trailed through
blood as he stepped across the body of a boy, his young
muscular beauty marred by the horror of his last moments,
his still-open eyes frozen in disbelief. “Where are you,
my love? Where is everyone hiding?”
	Her eyes caught her own reflection in a mirror hanging
askew from bubbled marble. Her clothes had been regal once,
in grey and scarlet and gold; now the finely-woven cloth,
brought by merchants from across the World Sea, was torn and
dirty, thick with the same dust that covered her golden hair
and skin. For a moment she fingered the symbol on her cloak,
a circle half white and half black, the colors separated by
a sinuous line. It meant something, that symbol. But the
embroidered circle could not hold her attention long. She
gazed at her own image with as much wonder. A young women,
just into her teenage years, beautiful once, but now with
lines already etching into the smooth silk of her skin, her
face lined where there should be none, for another 20 years
or more to come, dark eyes that had seen to much. Destiny
Sharack began to chuckle, then threw back her head; her
laughter echoed down the lifeless halls.
	“Jonathon, my love! Come to me! You must see this!”
	Behind her the air rippled, shimmered, solidified into a
boy who looked around, his mouth twisting briefly with
distaste. Taller than Destiny, though just so, he was
clothed in all black, save for the snow white lace at his
throat and the silverwork on the turned-down tops of his
thigh-high boots. He stepped carefully, handling his cloak
fastidiously to avoid brushing the dead. The floor trembled
with aftershocks, but his attention was fixed on the girl
staring into the mirror and laughing. 
	“Lady of the Morning,” he said. “I have come for
you.”
	The laughter cut off as if it had never been, and Destiny
turned, seeming unsurprised. “Ah, a guest. Have you the
Voice, stranger?” It will soon be time for the Singing,
and here all are welcome to take part. Jonathon, my love
where are you? We have a guest.”
	The black clad boy’s eyes widened, darted to the muscular
boy lying sprawled on the floor, then back to Destiny.
“Shai’tan take you, does the taint already have you so
far in its grip?”
	“That name.” Destiny shuddered and raised a hand as if
to ward off something. “You mustn’t say that name. It is
dangerous.”
	“So you remember that much, at least. Dangerous for you,
fool, but it is not dangerous for me. What else do you
remember? Remember you light-blinded idiot! I will not let
it end with you swaddled in unawareness! Remember!”
	For a moment, Destiny stared at her hand, fascinated by the
patterns of grime. Then she wiped her hand on her even
dirtier coat and turned her attention back to the boy who
was talking to her. “Who are you? What do you want?”
	The black clad boy drew himself up arrogantly. “Once I
was called Timothy Breyr Comnitmus, but now…”
	“Betrayer of Hope.” It was a whisper from Destiny.
Memory stirred, but she turned her head, shying away from
it.
	“So you remember some things. Yes, Betrayer of Hope. So
have men named me, just as they named you Dragon, but unlike
you I embrace the name. They gave me the name to revile me,
but I will yet make them kneel and worship it. What will you
do with your name? After this day, people will call you
Kinslayer. What will you do with that?”
	Destiny frowned down the ruined hall. “Jonathon should be
here to offer a guest welcome,” she murmured absently,
then raised her voice. “Jonathon, where are you?” The
floor shook; the muscular young boy’s body shifted as if
in answer to her call. Her eyes did not see him.
	Timothy grimaced. “Look at you,” he said scornfully.
“Once you stood first among the Servants. Once you wore
the Ring of Tamari, and sat in the High Seat. Once you
summoned the Nine Rods of Dominion. Now look at you! A
pitiful shattered wretch! But it is not enough. You humbled
me in the hall of Servants. You defeated me at the Gates of
Paaran Disen. But I am the greater, now. I will not let you
die without knowing that. When you die, your last thoughts
will be the full knowledge of your defeat, of how complete
and utter it is. If I let you die at all.”
	“I cannot imagine what is keeping Jonathon. He will never
forgive me if he thinks I have been hiding a guest from him.
He will give me the rough side of his tongue for this. I
hope you enjoy conversation, for he surely does. Be
forewarned. Jonathon will ask you so many questions you may
end up telling him everything you know.”
	Tossing back his black cloak, Timothy flexed his hands.
“A pity for you,” he mused, “that one of your sisters
is not here with you. I was never very skilled at Healing,
and I follow a different power now. But even one of them
could only give you a few lucid moments, if you did not
destroy her first. What I can do will serve as well, for my
purposes.” His sudden smile was cruel. “But I fear my
Lord’s healing is different from the sort you know. Be
healed, Destiny Sharack!” He extended his hands, and the
light dimmed as if a shadow had been laid across the sun.
	Pain blazed in Destiny, and she screamed, a scream that
came from her depths, a scream she could not stop. Fire
seared her marrow; acid rushed along her veins. She toppled
backwards, crashing to the marble floor; her head stuck the
stone and rebounded. Her heart pounded, trying to beat its
way out of her chest, and every pulse gushed new flame
through her. Helplessly she convulsed, thrashing, her skull
a sphere of purest agony on the point of bursting. Her
hoarse screams reverberated through the palace.
	Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain receded. The out flowing
seemed to take a thousand years and left her twitching
weakly, sucking breaths through a raw throat. Another
thousand years seemed to pass before she could manage to
heave herself over, muscles like jellyfish, and shakily push
herself up on hands and knees. Her eyes fell on the muscular
boy, and the scream that was ripped out of her dwarfed every
other sound she had made before. Tottering, almost falling,
she scrabbled brokenly across the floor to him. It took
every bit of her strength to pull him up into her arms. Her
hands shook as she smoothed his hair back from his staring
face.
	“Jonathon! Light help me, Jonathon!” Her body curved
around his protectively, her sobs the full-throated cries of
a woman who had nothing to live for. “Jonathon, no!
NO!”
	“You can have him back, Kinslayer. The Great Lord of the
Dark can make him alive again, if you will serve Him. If you
will serve me.”
	Destiny raised her head, and the black-clad boy took an
involuntary step back from the fire in her gaze. “Three
years, Betrayer,” Destiny said softly, the sound of steel
being bared. “Three years your foul master has wracked the
world. And now this. I will…”
	“Three years! You pitiful fool! This war has not lasted
three years, but since the beginning of time. You and I have
fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a
thousand times a thousand, and we will fight as many still
until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!” He finished
in a shout, with a raised fist, and it was Destiny’s turn
to pull back, breath catching at the glow in the
Betrayer’s eyes.
	Carefully Destiny laid Jonathon down, fingers gently
brushing his hair. Tears blurred her vision as she stood,
but her voice was iced iron. “For whatever else you have
done, there is no forgiveness, but for Jonathon’s death I
will destroy you beyond anything your master can repair.
Prepare to…”
	“Remember, you fool! Remember your futile attack on the
Great Lord of the Dark! Remember his counterstroke!
Remember! Even now the Hundred Companions are tearing the
world apart, and every day a hundred men more join them.
What hand slew Jonathon? Not mine. What hand struck down
every life that bore a drop of your blood, everyone who
loved you, everyone you loved? Not mine, Kinslayer, but
yours. Remember, Destiny, and know the price of opposing the
Great Lord!”
	Sudden sweat made tracks down Destiny’s face through the
dust and dirt. She remembered, a cloudy memory, like a dream
of a dream, but she knew it true.
	Her howl beat at the walls, the howl of a woman who had
discovered her soul damned by her own hand, and she clawed
at her beautiful face as if to tear away the sight of what
she had done in her madness. Everywhere she looked her eyes
found the dead. Torn they were, or broken or burned, or half
consumed by stone. Everywhere laid lifeless faces she knew,
faces she loved. Her brothers and sisters sprawled like
broken dolls, play stilled forever. Servants that had
attended her from her birth, all the way up until the moment
she turned the light off in their souls. For thirteen years,
she had lived, and for thirteen years she had developed a
friendship and a love for those all around her. All of them
lay there, all slain by her hand. Their faces accused her,
blank eyes asking why, and her tears were no answer. The
Betrayer’s laughter flogged her, drowned out her sobs. She
could not bear the faces, the pain. She could not bear to
remain any longer. She would flee, and bring this Betrayer
with her, and away from her destruction, she would end him,
and with him gone, the hand through which the Dark Lord
acted on the world, she would try to reconcile the damage
she had caused from the beginning, when she had first
discovered the Power. Desperately, she reached out to the
Power, opening herself to its flow, and immediately feeling
the euphoric bliss surge into her, now tainted by the slimy
oil which mingled tangled within the flows. The taint which
had caused her madness. The taint which was the result of
her arrogant attempt at defeating the Dark Lord directly.
She opened herself, and the air shimmered, seeming to turn
in on itself. 
The palace twisted out of focus, disappearing altogether,
replaced by land, flat and empty. A river flowed nearby,
straight and broad, but he could sense that there were no
people within a thousand miles. No people except for herself
and the black-clad boy. 
Still holding on to the Power, she drew deeply of it, more
deeply, and still more deeply; like a woman dying of thirst,
she drank it in. Quickly she had drawn in more of the Power
than any human could dream of holding without the aid of a
Talisman, yet she forced herself to hold on to her sanity.
She vowed to avenge her wrongs. To her salvation was a lost
cause, but at the least, let the histories show that her
dying acts were pure of heart and mind and soul.
	Her body felt as if she were aflame, fire searing her to
her core, and the Power flowed into her, as if to fill her
with every last drop of itself. “Light! Forgive me!
Jonathon!” 
	The air around her turned to fire, the fire to light
liquefied. The bolt that struck from the heavens would have
seared and blinded any eye that glimpsed it, even for an
instant. From the heavens it came, blazed through Destiny
Sharack, bored through the bowels of earth, and exploded
outward with un-reckoned force. Stone turned to vapor at its
touch. The earth heaved, thrashed and quivered like a living
thing in agony. Only a heartbeat did the shining bar exist,
connecting ground and sky, and surrounding everything for a
thousand miles, but even after it vanished the earth
continued to heave like the sea in a storm. Molten rock
fountained five-hundred feet into the air, and the groaning
ground rose, thrusting the glowing spray ever upwards, ever
higher.  From north and south, east and west, the wind
howled in, snapping trees like twigs, shrieking and blowing
as if to aid the growing mountain ever skyward. Ever
skyward.
	At last the wind died, the earth stilled to trembling
mutters. Of Destiny and Timothy, there was no sign. Where
they had stood, a mountain now rose, twisted in appearance,
as if the rock in its formation had wrestled with itself.
The mountain’s face was as unnatural in appearance as fish
out of water. Like the symbol Destiny had pondered earlier,
the rock face was two toned, white encircling black, and
black, white. The straight broad river had been pushed into
a curve away from the mountain, and there it split to form a
long island in the midst. The shadow of the mountain almost
reached the island; it lay dark across the land like the
ominous hand of prophecy. For a time the dull protesting
rumbles of the earth were the only sounds that could be
heard. 
On the island, the air crackled and snapped. Lightning
exploded outward, and a booming voice from the heavens
filled the silence. “YOU CANNOT ESCAPE SO EASILY, DRAGON.
IT IS NOT DONE BETWEEN US. IT WILL NOT BE DONE UNTIL THE END
OF TIME!” 
When the echoes of the voice finally subsided to
nothingness, the mountain, and the island, stood alone.
Waiting.	


…………And it came to pass in those days, as it had
come before and would come again, that the Dark lay heavy on
the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green
things failed, and hope died. And men called out to the
Creator, saying, “O Light of the Heavens, Light of the
World, let the Promised One be born of the mountain,
according to the prophesies, as she was in ages past, and
will be in ages to come. Let the Lady of the Morning sing to
the land that green things will grow and the valleys give
forth lambs. Let the arm of the Lady of the Dawn shelter us
from the Dark and the great sword of justice defend us. Let
the Dragon ride again on the winds of time………..